My achilles tendonitis has flared up again, I’m so worried I’ll end up housebound for months again. Whenever people talk about strokes they never talk about this - how you can end up with one side so weak that even the simplest everyday activities can give you literal sports injuries that keep flaring up and never go away. An inflamed achilles tendon probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I’ve already spent months this year housebound because of it, gone through shockwave therapy and physiotherapy, it keeps coming back and as I don’t really have anyone to help me it means being unable to do basic things for myself for god knows how long. Being trapped indoors like a prisoner.
And to add even more stress I’ve had a letter from the DWP - they have a huge backlog of appeals and assessments so I’ve been told my appeal will take longer than originally estimated. It won’t be sorted by January. And I don’t know how I will manage as I have no family to fall back on and mutual aid seems to be dead now.
This is on top of all my usual stress and problems, I’m having a flare up of side effects from my thyroid cancer treatment, my eczema is infected again and I’m covered in oozing, itchy sores. I thought I’d be getting a hysterectomy to solve my bladder issues but that’s looking unlikely now. Bank charges that can’t be paid off piling up on my maxxed out overdraft, struggling to keep up with my medical appointments and absolutely nothing to look forward to whatsoever. It’s my shitty 42nd birthday this month and what have I got to show for 42 years on this earth? A wrecked body, no money or property, not a single friend in real life, no family and no hope. Can’t even do anything for xmas or my birthday, my landlady is going away and I’ll just be alone with nothing to do and no company. I wish I had some shrooms or acid at least, but that’s a distant dream.
I haven’t been keeping up with the exercises lately anyway, I’m getting worn out. But I will try and elevate it more and see if that helps, thanks.
You’re welcome. As I said, you have to listen to your body. You still need to exercise intensely to stimulate the tendon to strengthen but dial back how often you exercise so that you can recover. There is a lot of variation in how frequently a person can handle exercise and it’s dependent on so many factors (genetics, lifestyle, environment, diet etc).
You have to find the frequency that works for you but don’t just rest indefinitely. If you don’t ever move it, you’ll lose it (mobility).
There will always be flare ups of pain and stiffness during your rehab. Pain is subjective and hard to predict. Manage that pain via rest and elevation between exercise sessions. You can objectively measure your progress by measuring your strength (the load you can handle and the number of reps/set you can do). If you are gaining strength, you are healing.
It’s not just a normal tendon injury though, my entire left side is weak because of my stroke and several years of physiotherapy haven’t helped at all. Whenever the tendon gets injured again, it eventually seems to recover but the next time I do anything, it gets injured again. My entire left side is like this now, constant plantar fasciitis in the left foot, shin splints, dodgy knee and constant arm injuries on the left side. It’s become clear to me that this is never going away. And i’m not gaining strength, I’m losing strength no matter what I do.